


Ritual of Remembrance

by somehowunbroken



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-10
Updated: 2010-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 15:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For hc_bingo: 'self-harm.' It was a matter of remembering, at first. Warning: self-harm. Cutting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ritual of Remembrance

Ronon ran, because that’s what his life had narrowed to since the Wraith had destroyed his home. He ran, and he avoided towns and people and planets that he knew were well populated. He ran, because there was nothing to return to, no reason to go back to Sateda, nobody there to help him.

He was so focused on running that it took him those first few weeks to come up with the idea, but he found himself there quickly enough. He hid in a small cave on a planet that had recently been culled, so far from the Ring of the Ancestors that if the Wraith came he’d have no chance, and he dug around into his own back with a knife. Ronon blinked back the sweat and tears that mingled their way down his face and gritted his teeth, picturing Melena and thinking only of freedom as he poked around, slicing through muscle and sinew in his search for the device the Wraith had implanted in him.

He didn’t find it, and in his agony caused himself more harm than he’d originally realized. The gash he opened grew infected, and it was three worlds later that he awoke to faces he didn’t recognize, anxious expressions breaking into relieved smiles as he awoke from what felt like a long slumber.

“You were ill,” a small boy said from near his ankle. “We feared you would never awaken.”

“How long?” Ronon grunted, forcing words out for the first time since he’d started running.

“Seven nights,” an older woman answered. “I drained the wound in your shoulder and applied yeshui root paste. The swelling has gone down and the wound has closed.”

“Thank you,” Ronon said, then: “You all need to leave this place.”

Four sets of eyes blinked at him in surprise. “Why?” the young boy asked.

“Wraith are coming,” he said, swinging his legs out of the bed. “Wraith are always coming.”

The young ones in the tent cowered, but the older woman narrowed her eyes at him and leaned close. “Runner,” she hissed, and he closed his eyes. No response was needed.

Ronon left right away, didn’t look back, but heard in the next market he ran through that the planet had been culled to extinction.

It was a matter of remembering, at first. He took his knife out that same night, sheltered for the night on another empty world, and drew it sharply across the flesh of his calf, leaving a dripping stripe that ached for days, pulling open each time he stumbled. Each sting brought with it the memory of the young boy, the woman who had tended his wound, and even long after the slash closed, the sight of the uneven line on his leg still brought their faces back.

A matching mark was put on the other leg a few months later, after he left after one night, just one night, but still the Wraith came quickly and killed those who had helped him. Another, just below the original, was for a woman who reminded him of Melena; its match on his other leg was for Melena herself. And so it went, a slash on his calf each time another person was added to his litany, and still each mark carried with it distinct faces and memories.

Ronon was on the run for three years before he ran out of places to mark his calves and began moving up his legs, acquiring jagged marks up his thighs. In his sixth year, he moved to shallow slices up across his hips, stopping just short of the soft skin of his stomach. He started marking small x-shaped marks on his upper arm, around and around in circles, and it was at some point in his seventh year, catching a glimpse of himself mirrored in the lake he was using as a bath, that Ronon realized he had no idea why he continued to mark himself in this way.

He quickly dropped to the wet ground and felt across his calf for that first scar, dredging up the faces of those whose blood was on his hands. The friendly town, Melena, his rank-mates in the Satedan military; the faces flew by until he reached the outside of one hip, where the lines meant nothing, brought nothing back.

Ronon fingered the small band of crosses near his shoulder, three rows deep and winding around his upper arm. Nothing. No memories. He should stop, then, because what was the use if not to remember?

It was what he told himself again, later that night, flicking his knife back and forth from one hand to the other. No need, nothing left to remember, no reason to bleed and weaken and scar.

It wasn’t enough to stop him, though, and the knife finally rose, adding another mark to the collection on his arm.

This way, he told himself, he would remember, always remember. The pain would force him to recall the faces. He would mark his own body to honor those who no longer had bodies of their own, thanks to him.

Ronon dug the knife in a little deeper, not even gasping at the pain or the blood that trickled down his arm and splashed onto the ground. He forced Melena’s face into his mind as he moved the knife. He would remember.


End file.
